I say....

I've been scriblling about the super amounts of money that European taxpayers have been paying out every year in interest payments to the banking sector - €5.6 trillion since 1995. This has to be one of the longest running extortion rackets in history. Remember that the banks lend money to governments that they don't actually have - they use the magic conjuring trick of fractional reserve banking to create the "money" out of thin air. They then charge taxpayers interest despite the fact that lending to governments must surely be one of the safest bets around....The figures for long-term interest rates in the European Union can all be found on the ECB's website. If you click here, you can see the figures for the last year or so. But I've just discovered that you can easily generate graphs showing the interest rates for all EU countries since as long ago as 1993. First, here is the official ECB graph showing interest rate variations for the 17 Eurozone countries.
Intringuingly, there was a moment back in 2007-2008 when all the countries were paying the same rate of roughly 4% - it was a good time to be in the Eurozone. But since then, the rates have gone all over the place with Greece, Portutal and Ireland being forced to pay extortionate rates - so high that they might as well pay using a credit card. Some countries, such as Germany have done very well since their rates are now down below 2%. This gives them a fantastic competitive advantage. Could that explain why they are so keen on maintaining the status quo?